Cambridge start an important period in their first season back in National League One with a trip to Esher on Saturday.

Having given unbeaten leaders Hartpury College a really good test in last Saturday’s 54-32 defeat at Volac Park, Cambridge now face back-to-back matches against fellow bottom-half sides.

And director of rugby Ross Stewart would love to see his men produce some 80-minute performances and register the results to get them closer to the middle of the table.

“It’s an important game,” said Stewart. “It doesn’t take a genius to look at the league table and see that if we can get two good results we could set ourselves up nicely for the remaining games before Christmas.

“It would put us in somepositive form and put some breathing space between us and the teams below.

“We’ll be approaching the game with the same attitude we’ve had all year, and we think we’re good enough to challenge them.

“We’ve got to play for 80 minutes, and if we can get our set-piece right we should be okay.”

Ricky Reeves is suffering from a recurrence of his neck problem and will require a fitness test.

Stewart is still waiting to see if he will have any of their dual registered players from Northampton Saints available, but Albert Portsmouth is back in contention.

Having watched the recording of the Hartpury match, Stewart believes his team could have taken care of the ball better at certain times.

“Looking after the ball at key times let us down having reviewed the game, but we certainly played some rugby,” he said.

“If we can keep the ball better and be a bit more patient we’ll find space or force teams to concede penalties.

“I keep going back to the defence. If we can stop teams scoring as many tries against us we’ll have a better chance of finishing them off in the last 20 minutes.”